remarkable that those of us in washington watching politics for years to see a speaker of the house fail so miserably to win support for his own measure. he couldn't figure out what was on his own caucus, and so that means that the president really is not negotiating with anybody who can really make a deal. he can't -- you know, he can't cover any check that he writes at the oval office. i mean for weeks now on this show and others, you know, people have been talking about deals and chris matthews always getting on me for being a debbie downer. the real issue is whether boehner can bring along members of his caucus for anything and we saw last night that he really can't and it puts everybody in a tough position, but the president does end up, i think, with a more reasonable upper hand. >> i think jair rad is right, it becomes easier to deal with some of the stuff after the tax cuts expire. >> well, david -- >> but the other thing i would alert you to is once they get through this, think what happened last night and what's happening this week is really a bad -- a bad omen for what the republicans migh